Steadfast, My Dear
by ryoku1
Summary: It had never occurred to him that he was young and idealistic, he'd always felt like a cynical old man trapped in the body of a teenager, which oddly was true in some ways. He didn't expect to righting the ills of the world, but at the very least he knew what was right and wrong, and he'd always strived to do what was right. Or, Soren is struggling, and Ike is Ike. Modern AU


The subway was more crowded than usual. It was a Friday evening, so that wasn't particularly strange, but it was an inconvenience. As he watched the train pull to the platform, Soren slipped the handle of his brief case around his left wrist, and then deposited his hand in his pocket, where his cell phone laid still and unassuming. He shuffled into the crowded car with all of the other commuters trying to get home, and shoved a little bit to get a clear hold on one of the swinging handrails with his right hand. It was probably crowded enough that he wouldn't need to hold on, but he did anyway. It was a force of habit at this point.

He watched the world speed by as the subway picked up speed, and his mind unceremoniously wandered. The first part of the trip was above ground, but they'd be moving down under the city soon enough, and the lingering reds of the sun kissed sky would give way to an invasive, stifling darkness. It was a familiar route, and his treacherous mind often roamed.

It had been a long day, as it always was. Being a public defender was an under paid and underappreciated job, and the majority of his coworkers were bloated alcoholics who didn't give two shits about their work. It made for long hours and tiring days, but Soren was used to only relying on himself, he'd never really expected anything to change.

Four months ago, when he'd been hired, they'd taken one look at him, and outright laughed. Just passed the bar, baby faced, idealistic, and undeniably dragon branded; they said he wouldn't last a year. He'd quit or would be offered a job by an established law firm, where he'd spend the rest of his life as their token minority. Because, as they put it, defending people who couldn't pay, didn't pay. Their defendants were the most impoverished, the least prepared, the lowest educated, had no resources to speak of, and no one gave a damn about it, because he was defending criminals that most people thought were better left to rot in overcrowded prisons for the rest of their lives. He wouldn't last, they'd said. His face was perfect for TV, he would be scouted as a minority charity case within a year, and then he'd be off making a 6 figure salary, encouraged to take pro bono civil rights cases for the reputation of the office every few years. In between, he'd be a warm body, something that could be pointed at to show just how inclusive and good his employers were, how even people like him could do well, and how his kind were so well supported in human society. Such talk disgusted him. He hadn't become a lawyer to make money, hadn't struggled through prejudices just to abandon people in need when it was convenient, and hadn't worked his so hard to be some minority show piece.

It had never occurred to him that he was young and idealistic, he'd always felt like a cynical old man trapped in the body of a teenager, which oddly was true in some ways. He didn't expect to righting the ills of the world, but at the very least he knew what was right and wrong, and he'd always strived to do what was right. He wasn't a charitable person, but he did believe that all people at the very least deserved decency.

Four months later, he was starting to see the realities, and he felt foolish for dismissing his superiors simply because they drank like fish. The amount of money he'd managed to save over the past four months was negligible, between student loans and rent payments he was just coming out ahead, but only just, and his apartment was shabby and far away from work. When he first moved there three years ago, there had been a few other options. No one wanted a branded living in their nice neighborhoods, and he'd had to settle for an apartment less than ideal. To him, it had hardly been a surprise, even with an acceptance letter to one of the best law schools in the country, this was simply who he was, and how society handled him. In the end, it had turned into a blessing in disguise. He was having a hard time paying for the place anyway, anything more expensive would have been impossible to maintain and a waste of effort. In truth, the small apartment had turned into one of the only solid places in his life. It was an old rundown thing, with leaky faucets, lights that flickered, and walls thin enough that he had a good idea what his neighbors were up to, but it was more a comfort than he'd ever anticipated. Sometimes he caught himself even calling it home, something he'd never done with any other place. In the end, it was a warm place to return to, which was good, because the job tried at every turn to bleed him dry.

Every day was busy, people coming and going and cases that tore him to pieces on a daily basis. He was almost grateful to be able to take a lot of the research home, because it meant he could work without interruption, without some mother crying to him about her son, or defendants that didn't understand that he was trying his best, but that sob stories didn't always win a jury, even though they should. None of his coworkers expected him to last long, so they piled work on him without a care in the world. Any cases that were impossible to win, clients that needed serious psychological help, crying women with babies in their arms, people that had obviously been abused for most of their life and of course the guilty ones, that probably did deserve to go to prison, but still needed someone to genuinely stand in their corner. He saw so many of them that it was a wonder he could keep it all straight in his head.

Within the last four months, Soren had proven himself more than capable of keeping up with the offices demands, but it took a heavy toll on him. His superiors and colleagues were starting to take notice, just as he was wondering how long he could keep doing it. But Soren had never shied away from a challenge, and he had never run from anything in his life, so he had resolved himself to stick to it.

He also knew that there was a betting pool at the office, if it was his mother or father who was sub-human, but he'd been dealing with that sort of nonsense from the very beginning. Entering the professional world should have meant it was different, but he knew better, he was not idiot enough to think it would change, no matter how well he did, or how much he accomplished, or how much blood sweat and tears he put into it.

In the end, it didn't matter, the opinion those people had of him was something Soren didn't care about. Being liked was highly over rated, and the absolute last thing he wanted was to be invited out drinking or to some god awful office party with the likes of them. They'd recognized his talents and his work ethic, and Soren had thought he didn't need anything else, but the realities of being recognized were starting to creep up on him.

His phone went off, and for a moment, Soren froze. They were calling again, he knew it. They were following up and making sure that he would come to the interview. He hadn't given them a solid answer, and now they wanted one. But the moment of fear passed, the phone hadn't really rung, it had been a text message instead, and Soren took a deep breath before pulling the damned thing out of his pocket.

Predictably, it was Mist.

"u hve cheese?"

Soren glared at that rather offensive lack of letters for a moment, before typing out a response.

"I'll pick some up on the way home. Anything else?"

The message had hardly been sent before he got a response. Mist's quick draw answers were something of an expected norm, but they still surprised him. She adored that phone, as most girls her age did. It was the most expensive thing she owned, and she treated it like any girl her age, with reverence and dedication. Even though Soren thought little of phones outside of their utility, he had to admit that watching her fingers fly across it was like watching her hem a seam or chop vegetables, it was magic in its own right.

"pickles lettuce bandages n pepper jack"

This time, he glared at the general lack of punctuation, before sending a quick answer just to let Mist know that he'd gotten the message. She answered back quickly, but by then he'd already pocketed his phone, and was again gazing out the window of the subway in a daze.

At the very least, this meant he wouldn't be eating take out that evening, and with any luck, he'd be able to get his mind off the call he'd gotten that afternoon, and how he hadn't outright refused.

* * *

Soren had intended to stop by his own flat first, to drop off his brief case and cell phone and then to make every attempt to forget they had ever existed, but Mist caught him in the hallway before he had a chance. She was taking out the trash before the truck came in the morning, but he imagined her crouching at the door, with her ear pressed up against it, waiting to hear the telltale clipping of his shoes as he strode to his own flat. The image was absurd, but with how often she caught him just as he was coming home, he could not outright discredit the thought. She was 15, and women started to become baffling far earlier than that. It was more probable that she simply knew his schedule by now, but Soren liked to imagine he wasn't that predictable, so even on good days he didn't enjoy entertaining that thought.

Mist gave him a bright smile, lugging the large garbage bag out of the apartment door. "Welcome back, Soren!"

He gave a small nod in greeting, and motioned to the large garbage bag in her hand. "I'll take that down for you." He always did anyway. Her ability to catch him at just the right time was uncanny. She hesitated, her cheeks coloring ever so slightly. He once again motioned to the trash bag. As always, Mist offered some half hearted refusal, but before he knew it, Soren had traded her the groceries and his brief case for the trash bag, and he was hauling it downstairs for her.

When he'd put it into the dumpster, he ambled back upstairs, letting his mind focus on the repetitive motion of scaling each step one by one.

The door to Mist's flat was cracked open for him, warm lighting spilling out into the dim corridor. He reached out to push the door open, but hesitated. He could hear the soft sound of chatter from inside, and the smell of meat cooking wafted out at him, but he hesitated, pulling his hand back to his side.

He could walk away. His keys were still in his pocket, and so was his phone. He could easily slip away into the quiet of his own flat, order delivery, turn off his phone, and claim he'd gone to bed early when the soft knock at his door went unanswered. It wouldn't even be hard, and no one would ask questions the next morning when he bumped into them. But he would bump into someone who would know in the morning, and the next day, and the next day after that. Eventually he'd run into Ike himself, or someone would sick Ike on him, and then there really would be no winning then. In their own way, this little community that had adopted him was accepting but pushy, persistent but gentle. It was entirely unfair, and he had been completely unprepared. Now it was far too late.

Mist had already grabbed his brief case too, even if he somehow managed to avoid his neighbors in the morning, he'd still have to retrieve it sometime before going to work the next day.

He slipped into the opened door, quietly closing it behind him. Now he could not only smell meat cooking, but he could hear it sizzling, and his stomach grumbled in protest. He hadn't realized he was hungry until that exact moment, which was not entirely uncommon for him. With practiced ease, he slipped off his shoes, so that he was only padding around in his black socks. It made him quieter, and somehow, he didn't like adding to the comfortable din of noise that characterized the place. It was a secret endeavor, to leave as little here as he could, and that irrationally included noise.

He quietly poked his head into the kitchen, hearing the sounds of food being prepared, and quiet voices that he couldn't actually understand. Oscar and Rolf had their backs to him. Oscar was in front of the stove top, poking at something in a pan as it sizzled. Rolf was off to the side, chopping up something with a deliberately measured focus that he rarely saw Rolf use. Not that he often watched Rolf, one of the buildings smallest inhabitants.

The two were talking about something, and quite obviously not talking about something else, if the mounds of Rolf's shoulders were anything to go by. Soren often cursed his observant nature, it made his life so much more difficult. He attempted to slip out of sight without being noticed, but as usual he wasn't good enough to escape Oscar's notice. He should have known better, Oscar was even worse about catching him in the hallways than Mist was. He briefly had an irrational image of Oscar and Mist getting together like washer women to plan who would ambush him at any given day.

"Thank you for the stopping by the store. Dinner should be ready in about 20 minutes. I think Ike and Boyd are in the living room, you could wait there with them."

Soren quite desperately wanted to say, that just because he looked 16, did not mean he wanted to sit with Ike (and Boyd), who were actually teenagers, but that would be a bold faced lie, and someone as observant and clever as Oscar would see through it in a heartbeat. The worst part, was that Oscar would apologize, and laugh it off as a mistake, knowing all the while that Soran had lied. Instead, Soren slunk away without a word, feeling like he'd lost some sort of battle, and entirely unconvinced he would ever win a war.

Whereas the kitchen was filled with soft movements and light chatter, the living room was filled with groans, and the voice that Mist only used when she was chastising someone older than her that should have known better.

On the couch was Ike and Boyd, as Oscar had said they would be. What Oscar had neglected to mention, and which Soren had already guessed, was that both of the rather large teenage boys had once again gotten into something of a brawl. It was hard to tell which of the two gotten the worst of whatever fight they had come out of, but Soren knew Ike, and he could be sure that whoever had been on the receiving end had gotten the worst of it. To his credit, Boyd at least looked ashamed for his actions, where as Ike had no reservations about how disheveled he looked. Boyd had a part time job, and he needed to look presentable, he didn't need that rather glaring black eye and all the questions it would bring up. Soren thanked the heavens that Boyd had waited till he was 18 to actively back up all of Ike's rather aggressive intolerances of injustice. The last thing Oscar needed had been Boyd at 17 with an active social worker. God he was glad they'd dodged that bullet. He was still amazed that Mist and Ike were somehow immune, but anyone who knew Titania, knew that they were in good hands.

Mist was fluttering about, scolding and generally mothering them when he walked into the room. She gave Soren something of an exasperated smile, motioning to the two knuckle heads on the couch. "Would you grab the neosporin for me?"

Soren didn't response, but shuffled over to the bathroom to do as Mist had requested. When he came back, Mist was leaning over Boyd, looking at a rather ugly looking cut on his cheek and when she extended her hand expectantly, Soren passed the neosporin onto her. She and Boyd were wrapped up in what they were doing, so Soren made his way over to Ike, and leaned on the couches arm rest beside him, trying not to look at Ike's busted lip. It was all purple and full of bulging veins and slowly bleeding down his chin and neck into his shirt, were a small stain of red had already dried into a deep burgundy. Ike wiped his chin with the side of his hand, stopping the flow of blood for just a little while. On a normal person, it might have looked like an act of shame, but on Ike, it was a simple motion, with very little ulterior motive. Soren was suddenly fascinated by the small trail of blood that slowly started to reform the path. He had to blink several times, and then actually turn his head away.

"Work any better?" Ike asked casually. "D'ya work through lunch again?"

Instead of answering either of those questions Soren shifted his head the moment Ike's eyes fell on him. He looked away. "I'm a little tired today."

Ike nodded, as if that was a good answer, and wiped at the newly formed stream of blood that had made it's way from his lip. It probably itched. Soren pushed himself off the couches arm rest to go get an ice pack, but a wave of Ike's hand stopped him. It had looked like Ike had wanted to reach out for his hand, but had thought better of it. Ike's hand was still rather littered with bruises, cuts and blood, both drying and fresh. Soren's suit would need to be dry cleaned if Ike got blood all over it. Since he'd gotten Soren's attention, for just a second, Ike looked sheepish, then he was back to being Ike. "Don't worry about it, Mist'll get to it. Boyd's just more receptive to her chastising, so she gives him the best of it." Ike motioned with his head for Soren to sit. Ike rolled one of his shoulders, likely in discomfort, but Soren watched the motion, the weight and girth of Ike's shoulder, and the arm attached to. Three years ago, when he'd moved in, Ike couldn't have been this big. Mist was probably going to be taller than him soon too, and then after that Rolf would catch up.

He sat, because there was nothing else to do other than stand there and gawk, and he tried his best not to do that.

On a normal day, Soren probably would have scolded Ike too. He would be fluttering around with Mist, and calling Ike a moron, but instead, he just sat, with his hands in his lap, looking off into the distance, his eyes falling on something that he was too lost in himself to see. Anything but Ike.

Soren had no idea how long they sat there, or if anyone tried to talk to him, but before he knew it, there was a call that dinner was ready. Oscar's calm voice pulled him out of the dark recesses of his mind, and he blinked and looked around in surprise. Boyd was already up and heading to the kitchen, Mist on his heels. Soren looked over at Ike to see that somehow, as he'd been lost in himself, Mist had come over and patched him up. The stark white bandages looked odd on Ike's skin, but Soren had always thought that, even though it was a rather common sight. He gulped, slightly embarrassed about being so spacey, and got off of the couch. It was only as he moved, and their hands fell away, that Soren realized Ike had been gently holding his hand.

All he could do was look at his hand as if it had betrayed him, because there was no way he could look over at Ike. He really had been lost. On a normal day, he would have noticed any minor form of contact, but Ike had actually been holding his hand, and he'd been too distracted to even notice.

In one fluid motion, Ike got up off the couch, and gave Soren one of those concerned, yet otherwise unreadable looks. "You worry too much. It looked like if I didn't hold on, you'd float away."

Ike gave one roll of that big shoulder, and started past Soren to the kitchen. Soren didn't let him. He grabbed onto Ike's hand, and the intensity of the action stopped Ike in his tracks.

And then Ike was looking at him, his head tilted to the side ever so subtly, the blood and grime of whatever fight he'd gotten into completely gone. "You might be right," Soren mumbled, looking down at his dark socks on the beige carpet.

"Should I hold on?" Ike asked, and Soren dared a quick glance to see the confusion on Ike's face.

Soren swallowed. "I think, that might be best."

"Okay," and as simple as that, it was not Soren holding Ike's hand, or Ike holding his, but them holding hands together. For at least that moment, it really could be that simple.


End file.
